


when you are close to me, i shiver

by defcontwo



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Background Relationships, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 17:12:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2475971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are days when Steve looks at Sam and he is full to bursting with expectations, with dreams and plans of what their intertwined lives could be and it's got him twisted up in so many directions that he doesn't know where to start. </p><p>Or: How Steve Rogers Learned To Stop Worrying And Get His Groove Back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when you are close to me, i shiver

Falling in love is a strange, inexplicable thing that always makes his chest go tight just as his stomach starts to soar. It's like every drop from a plane he's ever taken at once, the only difference being, he can handle the planes just fine. 

The hell of it is, it was always a little easier with men for him before. Flirtation tripped easily off of his tongue with very little second guessing. He and Bucky had always flirted constantly, a low level sort of pushing and pulling that was never really all that serious because they'd decided a long time ago that they were always going to better off as friends but it became part of the cadence of what they were to each other nonetheless -- a curl of a smirk, _so, you're keeping the outfit, right?_ , a response that is equal parts expected and exasperating. 

It was not out of wanting more or less because when push comes to shove, he can admit that he's always noticed women a little more, noticed the lines of their skirt and the contrast of pinned hair against skin, noticed the way a woman sets her jaw and straightens her spine just-so when confronted with adversity in a way that he could never help but endlessly admire. It was the simple mathematics of expectations, an unavoidable social reality that made more decisions for him than he ever really got to make for himself. With a question of a marriage or a future or some hazy long-term commitment, the only thing that Steven Grant Rogers with his WPA wages and laundry list of medical problems could guarantee was early widowhood. 

Maybe in the end, that's why it'd worked with him and Peggy. The war didn't give him much time to second guess himself, not after they got past their early days stop and starts. They didn't have the time to let the words get tripped up on his tongue and ruin everything because what was the use in wondering when tomorrow they could both be dead. 

But there were no expectations with men because there couldn't be, not then. It made the weight of his reality a little easier to bear and maybe his relationships were never going to be in the history books because they were more necking in a back alley with a fellow WPA artist than any grand love affair, but they were not insignificant, they were still connections, brief moments of time when someone looked at him with the sort of care that made his chest ache in all the right ways. 

Here, in the present, though -- Steve has a whole life ahead of him. Decades upon decades beyond end and there is no decision he can make that should be taken lightly. Not when it's Sam -- Sam who reached into Steve's life and flipped on a switch when before all he could see for so long was the dark. Sam, whose smiles reach his eyes easily but whose laughter you have to earn. Sam, who knows what it is to wake in the middle of the night shaking with the rattle of artillery fire but takes it in stride, falling into his routines and his practiced methods of moving forward with a sureness of self that Steve can only envy. There are days when Steve looks at Sam and he is full to bursting with expectations, with dreams and plans of what their intertwined lives could be and it's got him twisted up in so many directions that he doesn't know where to start. 

Steve looks at Sam and all he can do is _want_. 

He's falling from so many planes at once and for the first time in his life, he wishes he'd thought to grab a parachute. 

. 

The TV screen flickers, the opening titles sequence of Brooklyn Nine-Nine well into its third or fourth loop but they've been watching for hours and between that and the many Chinese take-out boxes littering the coffee table, all four of them have been lulled into a lazy sort of haze, the kind that makes even the small motion to get up and turn off the TV seem like too much of an effort. 

Finally, it's Natasha that breaks first. She picks herself up from her position on the floor in a quick motion, all cat-like grace, before switching off the TV and shooting off a purposefully sloppy salute. "It's been fun, boys, but I have a phone call in an hour that I have to make." 

Steve looks up at her, trying to blink away the lethargy. "Sharon?" 

Natasha goes a little coy, a little quiet, hooking both thumbs into the belt loops of her jeans. "Maybe." 

Sam, solid and warm and completely still in his position wedged up against Steve's side, picks up a throw pillow and tosses it in Natasha's direction. "Get outta here, Romanoff. Go enjoy your phone date." 

Natasha just raises an eyebrow and lets herself out via the kitchen window, tossing out a quick "good night, boys," and then she's gone. 

Sam stretches and it presses every inch of him into Steve, letting out a low, satisfied groan at the sound of his back cracking. Steve inhales sharply and forces himself to count backwards from ten and very pointedly does not look in either Sam or Bucky's direction. Bucky, who has contorted himself into a shape that cannot possibly be comfortable to fit curled up on the armchair to Steve's right, lets out a low snort that lets Steve know that he's not as good at hiding what he's thinking as he'd like to believe. 

"I should head out too," Sam says. "Catch the next subway back to Harlem."

"You could stay, if you want," Steve offers. "We're attempting biscuits in the morning. You're welcome to join us." 

"Oh yeah, Rogers?" Sam says, all sleepy, low amusement that sends a shiver down Steve's spine. " _You're_ attempting biscuits?" 

"Bucky is," Steve corrects. "And I'm allowed to watch and hand him ingredients as needed." 

"And don't touch anything," Bucky chimes in, stifling a yawn into the neck of his beer bottle. 

"And don't touch anything," Steve repeats, dutifully, because Steve set their apartment on fire one time in 1938 making soup and Bucky's never let him forget it, not once, ever since. 

Sam smiles that warm, easy Sam Wilson smile that always makes Steve feel a little like he and Sam are the only people in the world when it's directed squarely in his direction. "Well, I'll be sure to drop by for that. But for now, I think I'll take my leave. Good night, grandpas. Try not to stay up too late past your bedtime." 

"Who are you calling grandpa," Steve says, nudging Sam in retaliation and Sam rolls his eyes, nudging right back before getting to his feet, leaving behind a cold space in Steve's side. Steve's gaze tracks Sam as he shrugs into his jacket, one hand falling to his pocket to double-check that he has his keys before letting himself out the front door with a wave, the door shutting behind him with a soft click. 

Steve tips his head back against the couch and lets out a loud groan. 

Bucky whistles, uncurling from the armchair and propping his feet up against the coffee table. "You have got to do something about that, you know that, right?"

"Shut up." 

"Do I need to do something? Is that what this has come to? Another James Barnes Double Date Special?" 

Steve cranes his neck in Bucky's direction and glares. "Those never fuckin' worked anyways." 

"They might've worked just fine," Bucky starts, pointing a finger in Steve's direction, "If you didn't walk into it every time convinced it was gonna be a disaster, so don't give me that. You're your own worst enemy with this shit and you know it, Steve." 

Steve looks away, shoulders tight with something like resentment because he's never wanted to admit just how right Bucky is about this. 

"But I gotta say, I'm relieved it's Sam you're mooning after." 

"What, because it's not Stark?"

There was a day, not that long ago, when Bucky spent a little bit too much time with Darcy Lewis and the Internet and had fallen into a black hole of Internet conspiracies about the Avengers and their private lives that had Bucky fuming about invasions of privacy for hours on end. 

They try not to bring that day up. 

Bucky fixes him with a serious face. "Friends don't let friends fuck Republicans, Steve. That's in the Bible. Gospel of Barnes, Chapter One." 

"You know you're not even Christian," Steve says, exasperated. How Bucky has managed to pick up modern day slang with so much apparent ease that it comes out even when it's just the two of them, Steve has no idea. 

"Yeah, well, neither was Jesus," Bucky says, "and don't think I don't see you trying to change the subject, Steven. I'm relieved it's Sam because that look you give him? That same look you used to give Peggy, like she hung the stars and the moon in the sky? He gives you that look right back any time you're not lookin'." 

"No, he doesn't," Steve says, tamping down on that flare of hope because it is much, much too dangerous to really let himself think about this in terms that are real and true and possible. 

"Yeah, he fuckin' does and one of these days, you're gonna pull your head out of your ass and do something about it." 

"Look, can we -- " Steve clears his throat. "Can we not talk about this anymore?" 

Bucky stares at him for a second, considering, before giving a tight nod. "Yeah, all right. Want to flip to the History Channel and laugh at the inaccuracies?"

Because this is the thing with them -- if there's one thing Steve can say for the seventy years and so much hell that they've both gone through in their own disparate ways, it's that they've come out the other side knowing a lot better when to push and when to let things go. 

Steve's shoulders loosen and he nods, relieved. "Yeah, okay. Should I get more beer?" 

"Don't ask stupid questions, Steve." 

. 

Steve wakes to a steady knocking at his door. He frowns when he opens his eyes, the motion disturbing the piece of paper obscuring his vision. With a rising sense of dread, Steve reaches one hand up to pluck the post-it note off of his forehead and hold it up in front of him.

**YOU CAN THANK ME LATER.  
-JBB**

"Goddamnit, Bucky."

Steve heaves himself out of bed, padding into the main living area. The takeout boxes are all stacked high in the trash and the beer bottles are exactly where they left them, scattered everywhere. The kitchen counter is set out carefully with the ingredients to make biscuits; even the coffee maker is set up with grounds and all, just waiting for Steve to press start. 

Bucky is nowhere in sight. Sam's voice filters through the front door. "Is everything alright?" 

Steve crumples the post-it note in his hand, suddenly very mindful of the fact that he's in nothing more than faded grey sweats and a Brooklyn Cyclones t-shirt that Sharon bought for him last Christmas. Steve tilts his head back and stares at the ceiling, muttering 'why' to himself quietly. He contemplates, very seriously, the act of fratricide as he darts into the bathroom to brush his teeth at record speed before running back into the hallway, his socks causing him to skid along the hardwood floors. 

Steve strides to the door and, like tearing off a band-aid, swings it wide open just Sam's got one hand raised as if to knock again and another about to press speed dial 2 on his phone. 

"You're alive," Sam says, an expression curiously falling somewhere between relieved and panicked etched across his face and Steve's chest goes a little tight at the sight of it. 

Sam's wearing one of those plaid shirts of his -- the ones that would make Steve look like the grandpa everyone claims he is but somehow manage to make Sam look handsome every time, and Steve very carefully does not look down at his sweatpants and wince. 

"Looks like it." 

"No emergency?"

"Just overslept, that's all," Steve says, nudging the door aside and motioning for Sam to come in. "Sorry, I didn't mean to worry you." 

Sam shrugs like it's nothing but Steve can tell that Sam was halfway to fight mode and the back of his neck warms, shame crawling up his spine because he knows that it'll take a while for Sam to wind down from this. He knows because if it were the other way around, he'd have done exactly the same thing and whatever Bucky was trying to accomplish here, Steve is already halfway to ruining. 

"It's cool, man, who doesn't like an adrenaline spike before breakfast, huh?" 

"Most normal people," Steve says, with a wry twist to his lips. "Or so I've been told." 

"Speaking of breakfast, where's Barnes?" 

"Flew the coop," Steve says. "Didn't leave a note." 

"Maybe he's got a hot date," Sam says. There's something strange in his voice when he says it, like he knows more than he lets on. "Does that mean I've been led here under false circumstances, Rogers? Because I know you're not baking me anything." 

Steve's gaze sweeps over the kitchen, with its assorted ingredients and apparatuses. The recipe has been printed out and fixed to the refrigerator with a Captain America magnet, with key instructions clearly demarcated and underlined with a neat red pen. Steve's almost insulted; he's pretty sure that Bucky is exaggerating just how bad that soup fire really was. "How do you feel about teamwork, Sam?" 

Sam raises an eyebrow. "You're not gonna make a speech, are you?"

"No speeches until I'm at least three cups of coffee deep, Scout's honor." 

"C'mon, like you were ever a fucking Boy Scout, man," Sam says, because he so thoroughly has Steve's number and isn't afraid to show it. "Okay. Alright, why not? Let's do this." 

The thing is, he and Sam make a great team. In everything. 

It was easy to just tell himself at first that it was the thrill of adrenaline, a friendship forged quickly under fire but as time wore on, it became pretty apparent that something about the two of them together just clicks. From combat to beer pong (Sharon's fault, completely) to somehow, miraculously, baking, they fall into an easy rhythm. Sam cracks the eggs and measures out the ingredients and Steve does the mixing, the two of them swaying from side to side, cutting out an easy dance through the kitchen as they follow the directions. 

Somehow, they just always seem to work. It makes it hard not to wonder how what they'd be like in a completely different, far more intimate setting. 

Steve's not fooling himself; he walked up to Sam that day on the National Mall because he'd seen Sam around a couple of times before and each time, he was struck by how drawn to Sam he was. It was the first time since he'd woken up that he'd seen someone he was attracted to and actually felt the impulse to do something about it. 

But then there was HYDRA and Bucky and Steve's entire world torn down around him in so many bits and pieces, again. Somewhere along the way, they edged out an easy partnership, a one-two combination of combat buddy and close confidante, a delicate balance that Steve desperately doesn't want to ruin and yet furiously wishes to ask more from. 

This is the problem with him. Give him too much space to think about something and it all goes to shit. He does better with jumping out of planes without a second thought. 

"Hey, Cap, are you just going to stand there and daydream? Make me do all of the work?" Sam says, reaching over and swiping at the side of Steve's face with a biscuit batter-covered finger. 

"Did you just…" 

"I don't know, did I?" Sam says, and there's that strange look again, knowing and intent, and Steve is struck by that impulse again, to finally _do_ something about it. 

Steve reaches up a hand and wipes away the batter with his thumb, pushing in closer to Sam until they're both up against the edge of the counter, leaving just enough space for Sam to duck away if he wants to. They've been pressed far closer together than this; last night on the couch comes to mind. But there's a weight to the lack of space between them now, like it means something. It is not a static thing but a process in motion. Steve leans in and wipes the batter across Sam's cheek, his thumb tracing downwards until it settles just below Sam's lips. Steve feels like he's going to crawl out of his own skin; he is both too much and too little all at once. 

"About time, Rogers," Sam says, and closes the gap. Steve's breath catches but that's okay, he doesn't have the time to say anything foolish to ruin it because Sam is kissing him, pushing back and up and sliding one hand up to cup Steve's jaw and Sam kisses like he does everything, thoroughly and with purpose, like there's nothing he'd rather be doing in this moment than this. 

They stand there for what feels like no time at all, mere seconds turned into minutes turned into however long of hands tugging at clothes and the press of skin against skin, of trying to get as close as the space between them would allow. It had to at least have been an hour or so because they burn the biscuits, anyways, Sam laughing as Steve runs to turn off the oven and then dump the whole lot in the sink, and then Sam pushes Steve out of the kitchen and onto the couch, following him down and then they're kissing again, breathless and laughing into it. 

"I was gonna wait, you know," Sam says. Steve slides his hands up to cup Sam's thighs and delights in the way Sam arches into it, glaring down in a way that lets Steve know he's not mad about it, not even a little bit. "I figured you'd get there in your own time. That if you made a move, that meant it was the right time. That you were ready." 

"I'm not really good at ready," Steve admits. 

"I noticed," Sam says dryly. 

"Or -- or any of this, really. Never have been. I just don't know what to say." 

"Steve?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. No one's good at this."

Steve raises an eyebrow. "I don't know, you seem pretty good at this." 

Sam huffs a laugh. "See, Steve? You're doing so well already." 

"Smug pain in the ass," Steve says but it comes out muffled against Sam's lips. Sam laughs and they both rumble with the motion. 

"Yeah, yeah, I'm a pain in something, huh," Sam says, and kisses him again. 

And Steve, well -- Steve closes his eyes and jumps from the plane.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [when you are close to me, i shiver (podfic)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2604437) by [mergatrude](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mergatrude/pseuds/mergatrude)




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